Chicken Wings

I’m officially done with tasteless beef. Part of this is I’m getting older, and I recognize that, despite pretending to court cardiac arrest in some of my writing like it was a hot prom date, arteriosclerosis, unlike Donald Trump’s promises to make Mexico pay for a border wall, is a real thing. I’ve already seen some of the best minds of my generation stented and statin-ed. Advertisements

Thomas was a third-grade thug. He was the kid who got paddled by the principal monthly for infractions ranging from taking nips of art class mucilage from Elmer’s rubber orange nipple, to contorting his face grotesquely and eliciting guffaws from fellow classmates behind the teacher’s back.

The King of Spain was not waiting in the bar tonight. But, if he were, I know I would have been seated first. I cannot blame the King of Spain for not yet dining at Pacific Standard Time (PST), the new restaurant from the partnership of One Off Hospitality (Paul Kahan, Donnie Madia, et al.) and Underscore Hospitality (Erling Wu-Bower, Joshua Tilden). Like me, he probably heard the name of the restaurant and shook his head. Which is to say, it feels a little weird to have a restaurant that is an homage to California produce and “California coast soul” (sadly, Marvin Gaye is not involved) named after a Western time zone open in Chicago. I suppose I’m being provincial, but if you opened a restaurant named Central Standard Time in Los Angeles serving Italian beef and tater tot hot dish, Jonathan Gold might just resurrect the LA Times rating system just to award no stars at all.

According to the Bible, Samson killed a thousand men with a donkey’s jawbone. And as one is after slaying an army with a mule’s mandible, Samson was pretty tired and thirsty. So he prayed that his powers would be restored. As the story goes, his cries were answered with a spring, where he quenched his thirst, regained his power and went on to rule Israel for 20 years.

For legions of busty women carrying overloaded trays of Buffalo wings while rocking thigh-hugging orange short shorts, October 3, 1964, is a day that will live in infamy. That’s the night Dominic Bellissimo and his college buddies crashed his parents’ business, the Anchor Bar in Buffalo, New York, looking for a snack. In return, his mom scrounged up some leftovers, chucked a few chicken wings into the fryer and then tossed them in her husband Frank’s signature Red Hot sauce. Pigskin nation would never go hungry again.

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